Astride sturdy mustangs named “Okanogan” and “Spurs,” U.S. Border Patrol agents Darrel Williams and Justin Hefker ride quietly along a ridgeline above the Similkameen River valley.

The mustangs are among a dozen the Border Patrol’s Spokane Sector has bought to patrol a 308-mile-long section of the U.S.-Canadian border from the crest of the Cascade Range in Washington state to the Continental Divide in Montana.

“The reason we went with the horses was to get into those hard-to-reach areas,” said the patrol’s assistant chief of the region, Agent Lee Pinkerton. “We can really reach out to some of these remote locations.”

The Border Patrol, a division of the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection, routinely uses horses on the southern border with Mexico. But the mustangs owned by the patrol’s Spokane Sector are the first to watch the northern border, said Pinkerton.

The Border Patrol’s “Operation Noble Mustang” adopts horses from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s wild horse and burro program, blending today’s technology with yesterday’s law enforcement traditions, the agency said.